[ SECRET POST #2307 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2307 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 101 secrets from Secret Submission Post #330.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[bored_bitch]

I feel like a simple "read at your own risk" would suffice.
Although one should consider most if not all material to be that. Books certainly don't have trigger warnings.

[starphotographs]

Although one should consider most if not all material to be that. Books certainly don't have trigger warnings.

Exactly this. Admittedly, I've never quite understood this whole phenomenon. Where did it come from? What did everyone do before? D:

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, people were 'warning' before it it became such an issue. Because people wanted people to know their fic had certain things in it because it go them more readers.

[starphotographs]

I do remember this! It was also an attempt to staunch complaining.

I think the problem is that it's SUCH AN ISSUE now, and there are more and more warnings, for more and more things, at the very beginning of the summary, in huge block letters, ACK! D: And people yell at you if you don't.

[alicemacher]

Many TV programs, for quite some time, have carried what in effect are trigger warnings, even though they don't use the term and don't generally get as specific as fic trigger warnings: "This program contains scenes of violence which some individuals may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised." That sort of thing. Of course, in the TV medium these overlap with parental advisories for sexual content and foul language, so it's hard to say whether their intent is to protect people with triggers.

As for "Where did it come from?", if you mean "Why are trigger warnings a thing now and not so much before," my guess is that public awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder, in people other than war veterans, is a relatively recent phenomenon. That includes not only the "Some people get painful flashbacks to ______ when they see it in a work of fiction" thing, but also, "Hey, now I know why I become a mess when I encounter fictional works with ______ in them." Before, it was either "They're/I'm just being too sensitive" or "They're/I'm 'crazy'" or whatever.

[starphotographs]

I don't mind those because they're not obnoxiously specific. Actually, now that I think about it, there are a lot of commonalities between the "VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED" screen and the old-school style of online content warning. They both seem to exist to generate morbid fascination as much as they do to warn people off. So, that's a pretty interesting point!

As for the second thing... I think there's also kind of a "follow the leader" effect at play here, and the result is that the more it's enforced, the more "trigger" seems to mean "I FIND THIS OOKY AND YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME! PEOPLE SAID I COULD TELL YOU TO DO THAT!" And the broader the definition gets, the more it's enforced... Etc. With a side of self righteousness, pearl-clutching, and good ol' shit-stirring in the mix to... Liven things up a bit. I know it's not everyone, but a lot of people on the internet just like starting fights, and it seems like this gives them a socially-sanctioned way to do that, in which the complainer is not only always in the right, but crusading for the greater good.

Ultimately, I think there are better ways to figure out if you want to read something, and I don't like the idea that it's the author's fault that someone gets triggered.

[dreemyweird]

This, so much. I just always wonder how people who need trigger warnings on everything read actual literature.

[(Anonymous)]

Several things:

1. Many people don't read fanfiction because they want to think hard about the plot. I mean, it's free. The quality is (usually) less than published books. (Don't flame me for this, but it's true. It's not professionally edited, we're amateurs, et cetera. Of course, there are many, many exceptions.) They just do it to relax, and they might not appreciate being triggered when they're just doing something in their free time that they don't really want to think hard about.

2. Fan fiction often contains much more explicit material than pro fiction. When's the last time you saw explicit, pornographic material featuring underage characters in pro fiction? Extremely graphic non-con? Vore? Watersports? Scatplay? I've read several of these kinks (watersports, vore) in pro fiction, but they have all used descriptions, too; ways to explicitly show the reader that this contains watersports, or very explicit adult scenes, et cetera. That underage porn I mentioned earlier would probably never be published, at least not by reputable publishers.

[(Anonymous)]

ummm Lolita contains nothing that would be considered porn. There is an underaged character who is part of a sexual relationship but it's in no way graphic or detailed, certainly not to the extent that fanfic is. And it was (/is) banned in many, many places.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

The other thing about professional fiction is that it's a lot easier to go online and find a summary or synopsis that will most likely tell you about all the triggering content the book may contain. I mean, who was the last person who read Lolita without knowing it had an underage girl in sexual situations with an adult man? So someone with triggers can probably discover easily whether a work of professionally published fiction contains something they need to avoid -- not so with fanfic, unless the author warns.

[starphotographs]

A lot of what boggles me is that it seems like all of this only really started a few years ago, and internet fanfiction is... Well, as old as the internet itself, and everyone seemed to do fine before "trigger" even entered common parlance. I remember occasional kerfuffles about readers stumbling upon something unpleasant/just not getting what they expected out of a story, but it was always more of a "clarity would be nice" thing than an "OMG YOU RUINED MY WEEK! TRIGGERS!!1!" thing. I just wonder what happened to giving a clear but non-spoilery description of what your story is about, and just tacking on a "don't like, don't read" if it's about something that might be controversial. That was a good way to go about things, I think.

As for the second point... The internet (and the rest of the world) is fulla plain ol' porn of the non-fan variety. It doesn't seem to generally have warnings, but they tell you what kind of porn it is because, well, that's how people who want it find it. People who don't want it are less likely to find it if they don't go looking for it. Fanporn doesn't seem to be different in that regard.

[(Anonymous)]

everyone seemed to do fine before "trigger" even entered common parlance

No we didn't. We weren't fucking 'fine' at all. And fuck you for thinking my flashbacks aren't real. You don't think I'd love to be read and watch some of the things my friends do?

I also didn't realize that tv and movie rating were a recent thing.

[(Anonymous)]

...Seriously? Your argument is that it wasn't a clear part of the social contract in the past, so it's not actually all that harmful? Well, congratulations on apparently never having been triggered.

[(Anonymous)]

You know expect for with "actual literature" I can read reviews, outside plot summaries, if it has a tv tropes page I can check that out, ask someone at the book store, etc - there are ways for me to find out if this cool steampunk/medievail/sci-fi is going to trigger me. I research the hell out of books and movies before I watch them. This doesn't work for all triggers, no, but it's not like where with fanfic that the only info you might have about the fic is from the author.

TV shows have warnings, movies have warnings. If you don't want to warn then at least tell your readers that.

[dreemyweird]

This is laudable, but it doesn't always work. Well, it's good if it does for you; wouldn't work for me - there's stuff out there that has neither a tvtropes page nor in-depth reviews.

But I do agree that it would be nice to put an "I don't want to warn" tag on the work.

Plus as somebody who does have a trigger, I must say that I'm confused about people complaining that something in written fiction triggered them. Usually these things happen slowly, or at least have some kind of backstory. You can see that some shit is going to happen. Or, even if you can't, you can still stop reading as soon as you see the first lines containing triggery material.

[(Anonymous)]

....they probably don't.

[(Anonymous)]

We hear about books from friends and we can ask if the book has our triggers in it.

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the fact that most people can pick up on the tone of a book by reading a summary - which is a. Longer, thus gives a better idea of what's going on and B. Better written to provide the general idea of what type of book it would be.

Added to that is the fact that authors usually sign post where the novel is going. they do that for multiple reasons, but one of them is so nasty stuff like rape, or torture don't catch their readers completely by surprise.

Also, can I add the whole 'Geez, I don't know how they live like that!' is...kinda condescending? Particularly since triggers are something that really are hell to live with once they're hit [and more often than not, actual triggers are caused by nasty things.]

[(Anonymous)]

Books certainly don't have trigger warnings.

Exactly. It drives me crazy that people always forget that whenever they go all over-the-top politically correct on authors.

Plus, as a reader only, I just stop reading or, rarely, simply skip parts that make me uncomfortable or can trigger me: after all, what a reader hopes for is a story that may evoke strong emotional reactions. If a story is good enough or well-written enough to make you really involved in what is happening, in the characters, isn't that the whole point of the reading experience?

[(Anonymous)]

Books certainly don't have trigger warnings.

Only it is very easy to find out if a book has one of the major triggers in it. Reviews and outside summaries are much more common for books than fanfic. But good to know that saying "I don't warn" or "Notes: rape".

[(Anonymous)]

Books don't have trigger warnings, but any sort of popular book has in-depth reviews that usually mention those things. So, if you're triggered, you just wait a little, and then you have your answer.

Comments, on the other hand, tend to be more of a squeeing nature, and it isn't their job to describe what the fic actually covers. There's no guarantee that reading all the comments and seeing no triggers mentioned means your trigger isn't there.

I mean, I'm all for blanket warnings, but in the case of fic, I think there needs to be some warning. There isn't a plot on Earth that's so spectacular that it's worth mentally harming someone to avoid spoiling it. :(

(And I say this, by the way, as someone with no triggers.)

[starphotographs]

There isn't a plot on Earth that's so spectacular that it's worth mentally harming someone to avoid spoiling it.

I think this is one of those things that sounds nice on paper, but in reality, it's such a damn crapshoot that it's better to just put your story out there an hope for the best, because there are almost seven billion people in the world, and you don't know what will set any given one of them off.

The only job the author has is to summarize what they wrote in enough detail that it will actually draw people in, but not so much that actually reading it feels like a foregone conclusion. (There's also the issue that trigger warnings, especially when you have more than one, can further muddy things by putting major plot points next to brief asides, often before you even get a chance to read the summary.) How people react is kind of out of your hands, it's okay, you did your best, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

There is such a thing, and it's called "Choose Not To Warn". The option is available on AO3, and I've seen it used in other spaces as well. It's actually pretty common.

[(Anonymous)]

While this is true, if you're in a position of needing to know in advance about certain kinds of content it's usually a hell of a lot easier to deliberately spoiler yourself about mainstream media than it is for fanworks.